Fallen Angel
by Valkyrie Shepherd
Summary: After Garrus is critically injured on Omega, he needs some time to recover. Can he keep up a strong face around Shepard? This story makes marginally more sense if you have read my other Garrus story, "Sight". This takes place during ME2.


Fallen Angel

Garrus' head was swimming, his quarters spinning before his eyes. He reached out a hand and steadied himself. The bulkhead felt warm and familiar. He blinked several times. His new visor compensated flawlessly for his lack of depth perception. The loss of vision in his left eye. The price he had to pay. He reached up and felt the bandage on the side of his head and instantly regretted it. Pain sliced through his temple, so much so that he made an audible sound.

"Do you require medical attention?" the mechanical voice of the ship's new A.I., EDI, questioned.

Garrus was startled by her intrusion. "No. No, I'm fine." That's wasn't exactly true. He'd been dehydrated and starved for days fighting off those Mercs on Omega by himself. He'd lost blood, a lot of it, from the massive head wound that had robbed one of his eyes of vision. Certainly he'd been medicated, rehydrated and sewn back together with technology and a lot of luck. No matter how good his medical care (and it had been stellar. Anywhere else he would not have survived his wounds) no one could recover from all that in a day.

He'd seen Shepard though, and he knew it wasn't a dream, or a hallucination. "Tough son of a bitch," the other human (Jacob?) had proclaimed upon seeing Garrus up and about. Well, if Shepard expected tough, that was what he would give her. Now though? No medication could repair the true weariness in his mind and body. It was all he could do to remain upright and finish undressing. His civilian clothes were soft and comfortable. His armor was smelly and pinched from being worn so long.

He swayed again as he pulled off his under-armor shirt, revealing his grey-brown skin. He sat down hard on his bed. So dizzy. He closed his eyes. Focused on his breathing. Lights flashed against his eyelids, as well as the faces. So many faces. The knowledge that each of them were dead came with the vision. He saw their wounds. He remembered holding them as they died. He let out a moan.

"Garrus?"

He hadn't heard the door. His head shot up. His eye and visor struggled to focus. _She_ was standing there, wearing a sciences uniform, of all things. His gaze moved slowly upward to her face. He hadn't seen it in so long. Actually, he had seen it. On the back of his eyelids with all the other dead, and now, here she was.

She crossed the room in three strides, the mark of a soldier, and knelt in front of him so they were eye to eye. "Garrus?" she asked again.

"Shepard," he said, a little breathily. "What are you doing here?" he hadn't meant to sound rude. Was she insulted? Hard to tell with human facial expressions.

"I wanted to talk to you outside of the briefing room. To make sure you were alright." She sat down on the bed beside him. He could feel her body heat as their shoulders were almost touching. Humans were naturally so much warmer than turians. "Are you?" she turned to face him. She never looked at anyone out of the corner of her eye when she could look them right in the face. He admired that about her. Her dark eyes searched his, reminding him a little bit of his sister. She had never let him get away with pretending to be tough when he was sick. Their father expected Garrus to be the strongest creature alive, but Garrus' little sister always ferreted out his weaknesses.

"I'm..." he trailed off. He felt a bit better. His head was clearer anyhow. It still hurt a great deal, but he wasn't dizzy any more. Almost as though her presence had stabilized him. "I'm better." There. That was honest. Her eyes demanded honesty.

"What happened on Omega?" she asked, direct as ever. "How did you get cornered like that? A few more days and you would have died of dehydration."

"Shepard, I...I can't. Not right now," he looked away, ashamed. He couldn't even hold her gaze. What sort of soldier was he? If a commander asked you what happened you told them. That's was how things were supposed to work. Visions of his men, dead and dying, bleeding on the floor, came to the forefront of his mind. He stood up to move away from her. Mistake. He staggered, almost fell. His head stabbed with pain.

Shepard caught him. She put his arm over her shoulder as though the action was second nature. Muscle memory. Gently, she lowered him back onto the bed, easing him back to lean against the pillows and headboard. Turians normally slept in a semi-upright position (because of the head fringe) and he wondered distantly how she knew this. He watched her arrange his pillows and his legs through a haze of pain. She was quick, practiced. Soon he was propped on pillows, leg armor removed (she left his under-armor on, thank the spirits), and covered in his blanket. He wasn't sure what to say. How to react. A commander in the turian military, no matter how much he or she might care about their crew, would never do this for them.

When she had finished she sat on the side of his bed. "I'm sorry Garrus, I shouldn't have pushed you."

He shook his head carefully, "no, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to react so negatively. You're my commanding officer, I should let you know what happened."

"Take your time." Shepard's voice was different. He was used to her barking orders. He'd never heard this new, gentle tone. "I was a mess after I lost my team on Akuze. I don't know what you've been through, but I shouldn't push you."

He was confused and a little nervous. Who was this woman and what had she done with commander Shepard? Still, he did recall moments in their time together. Moments when he though for certain that she would kill someone, and instead she gave them another chance. Insane cultists got the help they needed. Murderers sent to prison instead of the morgue. He watched her lean, well muscled form. She showed a few signs of stiffness now. Was it because of her...death?

Garrus cleared his throat. His head pounded and he was very tired, but he didn't want her to leave, so that meant he should probably talk. "After you...after you died," he began. She turned, facing him head on again and already looking engaged, "I went back to C-sec. They offered me a leadership position, which I took. Thought I could finally make a difference. The only real difference was that all the young recruits wanted to ask about killing Saren. And about knowing you," he gave her a quick smile, his mandibles spreading slightly. That made him wince.

She chuckled, "I think I'm glad I was dead. No big hero parties. No adoration in the streets."

He wasn't glad she had died. She didn't know. Her death and hollowed him out and left him empty. Every time he walked around a corner of the citadel he expected to see her. Charging around with Kaiden and Ashley, as they had been on the day he'd met her. "I kept in touch with Joker for a while. Tali went back to the flotilla and Liara sort of dropped off the radar. Kaiden got distant. I know you and he had something..." He leaned forward slightly to see into her eyes. For a moment she looked a million miles away. Maybe he shouldn't have brought up Kaiden.

Her voice was slightly scratchy when she spoke again. "I'm sorry I left you all," she said.

"Joker told me you saved his life."

"I did, but I wish I hadn't left you." She didn't say she regretted being brought back. That was good. It made him want to smile again, but he remembered the pain, and didn't.

"I was pretty aimless after you left," he decided to admit. "I tried to follow C-sec's rules. I really did. I kept remembering what you taught me. How sometimes, in this big, messed up universe, you have to make your own rules. Do what you know is right. So I did. I left C-sec and headed for Omega. To be honest, I planned to join a merc band, but the corruption of the place just got to me. Maybe because I'm a turian. I just couldn't handle it."

"So you became Archangel," Shepard filled in, smiling again. "Shepard and Archangel. Very biblical."

"Very what?"

"The Bible. It's a human holy book. Ash could have explained in better." she shrugged a little lamely. "So you went vigilantly then?" she asked, changing the subject slightly.

He sensed that she was still curious to know what had happened on Omega, but he wasn't ready to tell her quite yet. He knew she wouldn't pressure him. She had always known when to push her people and when to let them come to things on their own. "Like I said, I just remembered what you taught me. Never compromise yourself. Don't suffer fools lightly. Always stand strong with your team." His voice hitched slightly when he said "team".

She smiled wanly at him. He knew she would understand, when he was ready to tell her, about the people he'd lost. She'd lost a team once as well. Instead of speaking, she reached over to him and rearranged his pillows.

He slumped back against the cushions with a shaky sigh. Quickly he covered for it, "This is pretty nice. You going to do this for me every night?" he joked.

She smirked, "don't get used to this, Vakarian. This is a special, one time only deal you've got going on here."

"Unless I go get myself shot in the face again," he said, playfully.

Shepard's expression changed. Her eyes grew hard. He felt suddenly admonished and he didn't even know what for. Her voice was tense, tight. "Your heart stopped."

"My what?"

"You heart stopped, Garrus. You'd lost too much blood, plus the dehydration. It took Mordin and Chakwas, and all that the state-of-the-art Cerberus medbay had to offer, to keep you alive."

"They didn't tell me," he said, softly. He thought of himself, blue blood staining the sheets of the medbay bed, with the two expert doctors barely able to bring him back. "I guess we both lucked out, didn't we?"

"Guess so," she stood. Her weight rising from the end of his bed made him feel uneasy for some reason. Like this had all been a dream. Maybe he was still on Omega, dying slowly and hallucinating. "Do you need anything?" she asked, gently.

"Shepard."

"Yes?"

"Stay?" he couldn't believe he'd said it. What a sign of weakness. She expected a soldier and he sounded like a child.

"I wasn't going to leave," she smiled at him, taking a seat in one of his chairs beside the bed. "I'll be right here, Vakarian."

Extreme weariness pulsed through his body. He couldn't have stood up if he wanted to. His eyelids drooped. She could see he was fighting to stay awake. He felt her hand rest on the back on his own. That was all he needed. He fell into blissfully dreamless sleep. For the first night since their deaths he didn't see his men. He didn't see her, dying in space. Thrashing and then becoming still. When he woke the next morning, she was still there. Alive. So was he. For the first time since that horrible day, he was glad of it.


End file.
